


Adult Conversations

by Nyah



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23295256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyah/pseuds/Nyah
Summary: Plot is secondary to a bunch of human interaction scenes. Just being honest. Basically Naomi and Holden are two hot people raised is a way more sexually permissive polyglot of a culture than anything on Earth just now so it's be a real bummer if they were as vanilla as the monogamous, straight couple we get in print/film. So let's not do that.
Relationships: Jim Holden/Naomi Nagata, Jim holden/Naomi Nagata/some others bc it's the future and they can't really be that sqyare
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Adult Conversations

1.

“How many times we gwon change this same filter?” Witchitree said with a derisive twist of her first finger. If she had been from Bangkok, Naomi thought it would have been an eye-roll deep enough to look painful, but she was from Pallas and she and her sisters had grown up trading barbs in vac suits while they polished hull camera lenses.  
“You have been getting a queen’s share of fresh air, Nagata,” said Lenny, in that voice that could smirk through a static-laden comm. “How is McDowell only hiring hetero-exclusive pretty boys? Did I fall through a wormhole 400 hundred years? If so, claim that shit in my name for the Belt!” Lenny snaked a hand up, quick as lightning, to tap a spot on the bulkhead before falling bonelessly back into their crash couch.  
Amos, the fourth member of her work group, was already strapped in for launch. Naomi had been on a few runs with him now but she couldn’t quite quiet that much-cited Belter neurotic voice in her head. His mass had his body resting so deeply in the crash couch gel that her mind kept trying to alarm that something was wrong with the couch, that even the Cant’s moribund cough of a breaking burn could put him in danger of compression fractures or pinched nerves.  
Naomi shook her head, using the motion to catch her hair in a thick tail, tying it back as she prepared to strap into her own crash couch. Amos was fine. He’d been flying almost as long as she had. But she kept feeling her eyes drawn back to his silhouette, dragging her gaze back to center every time she noticed the shift. Once, she noticed Witch giving herself a little shake like she was trying to clear her head manually. She was probably fighting the same impulse as Naomi. There was a reason sketch comedy feeds from Earth liked to identify the guy playing the Belter by having him comically panic about every choice their Earther scene-mates made.  
“Ahhh! You missed a spot!” Was the catch phrase of a once-famous Earth comedian’s most popular character on SNL, a Belter called Misha Checkaggin. Misha spent most skits chasing his Earthers around and insisting with increasing urgency they redo tasks to a point of absurdity. Audiences went wild. Two generations later and Misha had long been condemned as racist. But Naomi had skirted more than one rowdy group of Earth Navy boys, on shore leave and slumming it too near the center of spin on Ceres or Eros, who crowed a quiet “Ahhhh” in clumsy-cruel mockery, laughing behind their hands.  
And still, Naomi couldn’t quite relax at the way the Earther set off the “Something’s Not Right” alarm in her head. It made her blush with shame and with anger at herself for being ashamed. Her instincts were nothing to apologize for. Belter instincts had kept her family alive for four generations outside gravity wells.  
"New crew?" Amos asked with his gentle, canned smile.  
Naomi shrugged with her left hand while she finished cinching the straps on her couch with her right. "One medic, three Buckers, and an honest-to-god nurse."  
"Wow." Amos replied, expression unchanged. "Wonder who the nurse capped to end up out here."  
"Out here" was not particularly accurate since they hadn't left port yet but he was right, rarely did a nurse leave the countless cushy jobs available to a qualified nursing applicant to do first aid on a spit-welded ice hauler.  
"Let's someone find out before we need to know, yeah?" Said Lenny with a note of mild alarm.  
"We haven't seen the nurse yet," Witch put in. "One of the Bucks is an Earther," she said like she thought Amos might be interested to know and therefore betraying just how little she knew about Amos. "Pretty little thing that wears his jumpsuit like he thinks he's still in uniform."  
"What'd that one do?" Amos asked with the polite, interested tone and nod that Namoi was very certain by now he'd spent time practicing in front of a mirror.  
"You know it's always the same with the Navy cast offs, some sort of vice. Drunk and disorderly or roughing up too many degenerate Belters on camera," Naomi said, trying to end the talk before Witch and Lenny got around to teasing her about the number of new crewmen who'd dogged her steps with each new hire cycle.  
"Drunken disorderlies," Lenny spat scornfully. One of the most recent lapsed EMC girls had used a sealing phone not rated for hull work on one of the loading locks. The patch had given way during the flip and Lenny had been closest on hand. They'd gotten the emergency seal in place in seconds but had suffered frost damage to their right hand in the process. Rumor said the Earthen had refused a tox test and resigned her post. Moving on to the next crew of Belters who were expected to act like they thought she might actually prioritize their safety  
"Maybe this one grew up under a great big sky and always dreamed of seeking career opportunities in towing icebergs across junk space." Witch said, pretending at seriousness. "Or maybe he was just caught fraternizin' with a superior officer," Witch snapoed her thumb and pinky in a wink and Naomi knew she was still on the hook.  
Naomi Nagata could take a joke but the teasing had a hidden edge the young Belters couldn't see. Forgotten arm and all that. The core of it was, Naomi Nagata was beautiful. For a Belter.


End file.
